


In the lurch

by Queensbandit



Category: Rigel Black Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles, James introspects, Ruse Reveal, fanfic of a fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queensbandit/pseuds/Queensbandit
Summary: For James, having strong relationships felt natural and easy.Except when it came to his quiet daughter.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 80





	In the lurch

James had always been told that his birth was a miracle. It was an oft revisited topic in the Potter household, a dinnertime story, said in tones of sadness and still-lingering awe.

Sadness, because he'd been born after five failed pregnancies, two of which had been carried almost to term, only for the baby's heart to suddenly stop.

One, a sister, was lost to the Fade at three weeks, and the two remaining didn't survive for other medical reasons.

By the time the sixth pregnancy came around, his mother was old, reaching the limits of her birthing age. He was their precious only son, pampered and knew no real suffering.

There are moments in life, when priorities shift, when your place in the world seems different, when you realise there's a hole in your life that needs desperately to be filled.

His first such moment was when his mother, Euphemia, sat him down the day of his eleventh birthday, and told him he hadn't been alone in his mother's womb.

A twin brother.

It seemed almost incomprehensible to him at the time. Sure, he'd had fantasies of playing with a large crowd of siblings. Where other kids had had imaginary friends, he'd had an imaginary sibling. He was named Harry, after he once came across his mum whispering the name in her sleep. He liked Quidditch and played Keeper to his Chaser. He shared the same love of pranks and transfiguration. He liked action and adventure, and was as boisterous as he was. His imagination of Harry was always younger.

(He thinks this is why he reacted so irrationally when Harriet became obsessed with Potions. Notwithstanding the negative connotations associated with the subject -Snivellus sneering across a potions classroom, threatening to expose Remus' secret, having to feed vial after vial of useless gloopy stuff to his aged bedridden parents as they succumbed to dragonpox anyway - _helpless, so bloody helpless_ \- he'd always thought Harriet would turn out like him at least a little - she looked so much like him- To see the complete opposite squished some frivolous desire that he didn't want to admit existed, he knew it was wrong, so wrong. He still skirted around the topic in his own brain.)

But, at age eleven, to realise that he truly had been part of a pair, the other who, his mother confessed in a choked whisper, had been named Harry, made him feel things that were very confusing for an eleven year old. 

Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.

They shared the same placental connection, from which nourishing blood came, his mother explained gently. But due to some imbalance, James recieved most of the blood and progressed healthily, while his twin was small and stunted. He didn't survive his eighth month as a foetus.

"I'm not telling you this to scare you or make you feel sad, James. But you deserve to know you were a twin. I believe your soul will always be reaching, jumping headlong into friendships and relationships, seeking to fill some empty space within you."

And wasn't that true. He'd made three friends his first year and stuck to them for those seven years, even when they had made some very questionable decisions, like setting a classmate in the path of a werewolf on purpose. And he still had them. (Except Peter, of course, but there'd been nothing he could do about that. Thinking of the way Peter died still brought in him a potent mix of anger and guilt. _-helpless, so bloody helpless-_ )

He saw Lily for the first time in Kings Cross, magic rejoicing at the sight of her cherry red hair and bright green eyes, and pestered her until she gave in to his advances. It was also the first time he truly questioned muggleborn exclusion at Hogwarts. Before, he had only accepted it as fact, even though he knew it was unfair and supremacist. 

As the years passed, this feeling deepened, he saw Remus looked at cruelly for being born a half-blood, and was stared at for consorting with a muggleborn, Lily.

When the half-blood exclusion laws passed three years after he graduated from Hogwarts, the knowledge that his one-year-old daughter would not receive the same opportunities he had, struck him deep. _-helpless, so bloody helpless-_

Auror work became his escape, he threw himself into it, although it did nothing to assuage his discomfort. He worked so hard that it soon became public knowledge that he'd be promoted to Head Auror once Robards retired.

Those months with Lily were stilted. The Hogwarts laws had passed, Lily was seething with her own righteous anger about the unfairness of it all, and disappearing for hours in long political discussions with Dumbledore or the Longbottoms, Harry in tow. Peter had defected to COW party, Remus was losing job after job, Sirius had left auror work. It all coalesced into a need to escape by working all the time.

From a political standpoint, there wasn't much _he_ could do. He wasn't an attention-grabbing speaker or brilliant political strategist. Playing with subtle implications and indirect insults exhausted him. Foremost, James was an action-taker, but setting fire to Riddle, Peter and Malfoy's heads, in that order, wasn't feasible.

Sometimes, he thought, it was a good thing that Harry hadn't gone to Hogwarts. He wouldn't have been able to stand the idea of his fawn being ostracised and treated cruelly at Hogwarts. Harry was quiet and sensitive, only wanting to brew potions. It made his heart fill with ice, because they would have taunted and teased her until she grew steadily more withdrawn. Not to mention, all the crazy things that had happened in the last few years. She was better off far away in America. He had come to grips with that fact.

So, after the fall of Rigel Black's deception at the last task, when the entire family contacted Harry at AIM, for some information about Archie's location, Sirius gasping beside him as they landed on American soil, his concern for Archie turning into shock as he looked into rermorseful grey eyes and black hair on a younger copy of Sirius, he realised, the feeling swelling and swelling till it choked him, he didn't know where his daughter was.

He didn't know anything about her, to even try guessing.

_-helpless, so bloody helpless-_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I hope this makes some sense. I went off on a tangent while writing and never really got to the point I wanted to make while still keeping it a one-shot. Hope it seemed continuous to you though.  
> Also, the backstory James has in this seems more and more ridiculous every time I reread it. Tell me if it seems plausible, or is just a far-fetched explanation for James' character.


End file.
